Dissertation: Narrative Generation for Agent-Based Models

Abstract: This dissertation proposes a four-level framework for thinking about having agent-based models (ABM) generate narrative describing their behavior, and then provides examples of models that generate narrative at each of those levels. In addition, “interesting” agents are identified in order to direct the attention of researchers to the narratives most likely to be worth spending their time reviewing. The focus is on developing techniques for generating narrative based on agent actions and behavior, on techniques for generating narrative describing aggregate model behavior, and on techniques for identifying “interesting” agents. Examples of each of these techniques are provided in two different ABMs, Zero-Intelligence Traders (Gode & Sunder, 1993, 1997) and Sugarscape (Epstein & Axtell, 1996).

My research focused on pricing strategy and its impact on Supply Chain (SC) using the Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) approach. Currently, I’m working on an ABMS model to analyze the impact of SC Coordination on SC performance when intelligent retailers may offer price discounts based on the market’s states using Q-learning algorithm.

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network science; social networks; sociology; complex systems; ecological psychology; cognitive science; perception and action

My main research interests are the theoretical and experimental analysis of the dynamics of social networks, in relation to problems of cooperation and conflict.

My work centers on evaluating the adaptiva capacity and proposing strategies for managing forest under climate change in both temperate and tropical areas.

Development and usage of demographic microsimulation tools and applications, in particular combining statistical modeling and social theory

PhD student in the Agent Systems Research Group of the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the VU University Amsterdam. Current research focuses on Modeling Human Behavior and exploring Serious Games interactions with humans.

I am a spatial (GIS) agent-based modeler i.e. modeler that simulates the impact of various individual decisions on the environment. My work is mainly methodological i.e. I develop tools that make agent-based modeling (ABM) easier to do. I especially focus on developing tools that allow for evaluating various uncertainties in ABM. One of these uncertainties are the ways of quantifying agent decisions (i.e. the algorithmic representation of agent decision rules) for example to address the question of “How do the agents decide whether to grow crops or rather put land to fallow?”. One of the methods I developed focuses on representing residential developers’ risk perception for example to answer the question: “to what extent is the developer risk-taking and would be willing to build new houses targeted at high-income families (small market but big return on investment)?”. Other ABM uncertainties that I evaluate are various spatial inputs (e.g. different representations of soil erosion, different maps of environmental benefits from land conservation) and various demographics (i.e. are retired farmers more willing to put land to conservation?). The tools I develop are mostly used in (spatial) sensitivity analysis of ABM (quantitative, qualitative, and visual).